I'm the CEO and co-founder of NewsCred, the world's leading content marketing and syndication platform. We started the company in my dining room in Switzerland, moving it to Dhaka, then General Assembly in New York, and now we're 85 people in 3 countries. I've raised money three times, hired and fired my way to an amazing team, spoken at conferences big and small, and made enough mistakes to last a lifetime. I've won deals with the world's biggest brands and publishers, and also lost deals that were backbreaking and sometimes heartbreaking. But through it all, the one trait I've never lost is perseverance. Having lived through many near-death experiences at NewsCred, we're now reinventing the model for news and dominating the content marketing industry. And this is my story.

10 Ways to Spend Your Funding: Confessions of an Ex-Lean Entrepreneur

I admit it: I used to be the prototypical lean entrepreneur. We paid ourselves meager salaries and were generally scrappy. Our $750K seed round was raised without any fanfare and we grew NewsCred to over 15 people with that money, making it last nearly three years.

But then we went out and raised our Series A. Suddenly we had several million dollars in our bank account, and investors expected us to put the money to work. I still feel guilty when I see money being spent, but I realize now that investing in growth takes real capital.

Here are 10 things that we’ve spent money on. Some feel superfluous or extravagant, but I would do each again in a heartbeat.

Hire an office manager: The first hire after raising our Series A was an office manager. I spent way too much time scheduling meetings, payroll, etc. I’ve calculated that I save almost a full day each week just by having my office manager do my scheduling.

Get a nice office: I think you should always feel a bit guilty about the office. It’s good practice to get an office that feels just slightly extravagant. It’ll make your employees feel good, your customers reassured and you won’t have to move or upgrade before you’re ready.

Invest in marketing: Lean entrepreneurs love putting the following line in their pitch decks (we did): “Amount spent on marketing: $0.” Get over it. Investing in marketing, building our brand, and upgrading our collateral were all pivotal to our maturation as a business.

Invest in Search Engine Marketing: We pumped money in search engine marketing to test assumptions and hypotheses quickly. If the economics work, keep investing (we did). Obviously the key here is to be data driven since overinvestment in SEM can kill you if your acquisition costs aren’t inline with lifetime value.

Outsource PR: Lean entrepreneurs hate PR. Again, get over it. I can call journalists, set up interviews, craft stories, and get PR myself, but my time is valuable and is best spent on other things..

Hire a CFO: Get your books in order. You never know what will happen – a sudden funding round, an acquisition offer, or even an acquisition opportunity for your company. More than that, it feels great to present numbers to the board that are accurate rather than back-of-the-envelope.

Invest in sales: We used to hire salespeople with trepidation. But if you’ve climbed the sales learning curve, start investing in salespeople. There will be mistakes and mis-hires, but the only way you’ll make money is if you spend it.

Attend/sponsor events and conferences: As Mark Suster put it, don’t be a “conference ho.” But if there is a targeted event or conference, show up and start working the corridors. Better yet, if there are real sales opportunities, sponsor the event. We spend a lot of money sponsoring events, but only if we can actually set up shop and sell/collect leads.

Value your time: Always be thinking about the value of your time. If you’re saving money by not cabbing it, but end up stuck in a subway for an hour, do the math. Being cheap doesn’t necessary mean you’re getting good value.

Cannibalize your job: As a lean entrepreneur, you think you can do everything. Wearing multiple hats is our specialty, after all. But the best decision to make for your business is to hire people who are smarter and better than you to start doing all those jobs. The velocity and quality of work will improve, growth rates will increase, and you’ll be building real value for shareholders.

Being proud of being frugal was silly. I’d rather be proud of building a massively successful and profitable business. So for other lean entrepreneurs out there, don’t be scared to make the shift. It’s the best decision I ever made.

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